Not Overthinking

Competitiveness and Mimetic Traps

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Oct 12, 2020
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ANECDOTE

The Cardboard Box That Sparked Honest Truth

  • Brian found a box of his year’s work and realised none of it meant anything, which forced honest re-evaluation.
  • That moment of despair revealed he’d enrolled in grad school out of inherited competitiveness, not purpose.
INSIGHT

Communities Amplify Desires Through Exposure

  • Desire is often mimetically inherited: spending time in a community amplifies the desire to excel within it.
  • Timar describes a feedback loop where more time in the physics department increased his ambition and tunnel vision.
INSIGHT

Rank Can Disconnect From Real Value

  • Mimetic traps decouple social reward from external reality, so rank can feel meaningful even if it produces little real value.
  • Timar warns you can ascend a hierarchy for years without creating anything humanity finds valuable.
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